Drill tests China Lake Fire Dept. response time

Saturday

Dec 8, 2012 at 2:30 PM

It’s a cold, near-winter’s day working for a small-town fire department. All is normal.Then it happens.A plane loses a dummy bomb that collides with a building. There’s massive damage to half of Thomson Lab. The call comes out to your department to respond.

By Cheeto Barreraeditor@ridgecrestca.com

It’s a cold, near-winter’s day working for a small-town fire department. All is normal. Then it happens.A plane loses a dummy bomb that collides with a building. There’s massive damage to half of Thomson Lab. The call comes out to your department to respond.There’s wreckage everywhere. Half the lab is gone. You know people are inside – wounded and possibly dead – but you don’t know how many.Go.This was the scenario facing the China Lake Fire Department Wednesday morning in a semi-annual drill to test their response to a mass-casualty incident. There were 25 people wounded and two dummies playing the dead at the scene.Twenty-three were successfully rescued and sent to area hospitals or air lifted to Lancaster or Bakersfield. Two died while waiting to be treated. One of the twenty-three was initially declared to be dead at the scene, but was miraculously still alive. Drill organizers said responders couldn’t declare someone dead simply because they might present with life-threatening injuries. As with any any drill, short comings were exposed. For example, a victim with a chest wound that involved a punctured lung – who needed immediate transportation to a hospital – was told to walk to a triage setup while another individual with broken legs received attention.Only a handful of people knew the true nature of the incident. It was up to the emergency response teams to figure out what had happened, how many people were injured and to what degree were they hurt.And it isn’t an easy process, because the planners for the drill made sure they accounted for as many real-world situations as possible, right down to the fake blood to cover the fake wound of each actor.The fire department, along with emergency first responders from Ridgecrest and the Navy, knew only that the drill was going to happen sometime that morning. They didn’t know the nature of the drill, the number of people involved in the drill or other curveballs the planners would throw at them.The day started early in the morning at the pass and badge office when the players assembled and made their way to the site of the drill.Among them were students from Trona’s ROP emergency responder program, Ridgecrest’s Community Emergency Response Team and other China Lake Personnel. They were all brought to a conference room inside Thomson Lab where the gory scene was assembled.The wounds had to look realistic in order to help the first responders identify what was wrong. So when a role called for the actor to be missing an arm, his arm was tucked into his shirt and fake blood painted on his elbow, with a touch of white goo to stand for the bone protruding from where the appendage was ripped off.There were minor injuries too, including a victim in shock but with no other significant injuries, to life threatening injuries such as a piece of sheet metal lodged in the victim’s abdomen.The sheet metal required a piece of bent metal placed inside Dillan Cartmell’s shirt and slightly down his pants with some painted blood for good measure.For a really gruesome effect, cotton swabs were added for tissue damageAfter the amputated feet, facial lacerations, broken bones, body wounds and other injuries painted on each of the actors, they were assembled around the lab, in different rooms and in the halls.Each actor had instruction for what they need to do, whether it was to lay on the ground in pain, or behave completely hysterically.The drill started at 9:30 a.m. with a smoke machine starting up. A call was placed to the China Lake Fire Department’s crash phone, answered by a CLFD station rather than the intended target of the tower. But the result was still the same: An engine and ambulance were dispatched to the scene.Five minutes later, a call is placed to inform officials that a high-ranking NCIS official was in the building at the time. The caller was bounced around between dispatchers, but eventually was answered.CLFD arrived with an engine, an ambulance and a rescue team.Upon arrival, the engine parked away from the scene and the crews assembled to assess the situation. They didn’t know if there was a live device in play that could pose a risk to the first responders. The responding fire captain completed a full assessment of the situation and after needing to be filled in that part of the building is gone, he is approached by the walking wounded. They are the actors that were “green tags,” those who are possibly hurt but don’t need immediate medical attention.It feels like forever, but in reality is no more than 20 minutes before firefighters enter the building. They need to get together, form a plan of attack, set up triage centers, get equipment placed at a convenient, easily accessible distance.Then they enter. They do a pass of the rooms that are now a disaster area (well, according to the drill, in reality, it is merely messy). They check the injured, figure out who needs intensive care and who can get out more easily.They help those who can to walk out and set them up at the triage center, around the corner from the building.Some of the actors report that they are quickly told the firefighter will be back and left to hope they will be treated.Firefighters already find two people dead, but more could die if they don’t act quickly to save their lives.Then do eventually go back for the more seriously injured.Some are carried out, including Teddy Johnson who had broken arms and legs, and was carried out by his arms and legs.Johnson said it was uncomfortable to be carried like that and slightly cold because his pants were falling down.Others weren’t carried at all. Instead¸ they were placed in rolling chairs and rolled out, then treated on in the entry way to the building.The fire crews kept their wits about them in a confusing time, including utilizing anything they could to save lives.Even in the beginning when it felt like forever before they began helping people, it was the initial delay to plan that helped rescue the victims in an orderly fashion. That alone made the operation go smoothly and have everyone out of the building and ready to transport to a hospital within two hours.Helping CLFD was China Lake Police, who likewise helped pull people from the building.The police also had the unenviable task of guarding a hysterical wife determined to run into the building to find her husband. She was pulled away four times and ran back four times. It was all to prepare the responders for what was to come in case this happened for real.Eventually, the Navy medics arrive and bring an extra help and extra efficiency. The wounded are treated, transported to the hospital and the scene is cleared.The rescue and initial triage is over in less than two hours. There are still some at the triage station awaiting to be taken to a hospital while firefighters began to clean up their gear after clearing the building for anyone they may have missed.The actors converged afterward taking about the experience.They were impressed with how efficiently everything went. One Trona student even commented that a paramedic asked him if he was really hurt his acting was so good. If he didn’t have both his arms, you might have believed he had lost one before.A dead patient who died while awaiting treatment said she was impressed with how professional everyone was. She wasn’t surprised she died – her entire left side was crushed after all.All that is left is the actual debriefing and analysis of how the crews did. There will be another drill next year and perhaps the lessons of Wednesday will be learned. But, then again, the testers are going to find another way to make the first responders stumble.All to make them better.